Rockstar Games Inc. has a complicated relationship with the people who mod its games. On the one hand, Rockstar has said that it loves seeing all of the cool fan creations that add new functionality and play modes. On the other hand, Rockstar wants to control its properties with an uncompromising iron fist that crushes all resistance in the studio’s quest to create its ideal authoritarian video game utopia. It is a delicate balance.

The studio initially ran into resistance from fans when it was allegedly banning people from Grand Theft Auto Online for using mods in their single-player game. Rockstar seemingly backed off at the time, saying that contrary to the reports of dozens of players on the GTA Steam forums, they were not banning people for using single player mods.

Now, however, it seems that the studio has banned the creators of FiveM, a Grand Theft Auto 5 modding project that uses its own custom-made multiplayer service, despite the fact that the mod did not affect Rockstar’s own multiplayer game, GTA Online. While the mod did access Rockstar’s GTA servers, it did so only to check the authenticity of the game.

“Here’s the ironic part,” FiveM user Ash Rogers told Eurogamer. “FiveM uses a Social Club hook in, it did this to make sure PEOPLE OWNED THE GAME, as a piracy protection method so people couldn’t just crack the game and still get to play MP. FiveM is the only thing out there on the GTA modding scene to do so. Because of this piracy protection check, Rockstar have got angry and started to ban people. YES, people who CONFIRMED THEY PURCHASED THE GAME!”

This is not the first time Rockstar has butted heads with modders. The studio has previously been accused of adding game updates that intentionally break mods, but the studio has repeatedly denied this claim.

“Recent updates to GTAV PC had an unintended effect of making unplayable certain single player modifications,” Rockstar said in May. “This was not intentional, no one has been banned for using single player modifications, and you should not worry about being banned or being relegated to the cheater pool just for using single player PC mods.”

Image credit: Rockstar Games Inc